'you've Got Mail!' Exclaims The Cheery Automaton

Yes, It Seems We've Got This Mutant Gene In Our Human Personality That Makes Us Susceptible To This Same Kind Of Mistake Over And Over Again. It's Really Uncanny How We Build These Beautiful Multicultural Edifices And Then Allow This Switch To Be Flipped And Everybody Goes, 'oh, The Other, Get Them Out Of Here.

Does Any Woman Ever Count The Grains Of Her Harvest And Say: Good Enough? Or Does One Always Think Of What More One Might Have Laid In, Had The Labor Been Harder, The Ambition More Vast, The Choices More Sage?

Both My Mum And Dad Were Great Readers, And We Would Go Every Saturday Morning To The Library, And My Sister And I Had A Library Card When We Could Pass Off Something As A Signature, And All Of Us Would Come With An Armful Of Books.

I Was Not 15 Anymore, And Choices No Longer Had That Same Clear, Bright Edge To Them.

While I Love To Read Contemporary Fiction, I'm Not Drawn To Writing It. Perhaps It's Because The Former Journalist In Me Is Too Inhibited By The Press Of Reality; When I Think About Writing Of My Own Time I Always Think About Nonfiction Narratives. Or Perhaps It's Just That I Find The Present Too Confounding.